


Something New Inside

by Face_of_Poe



Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Historical RPF
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Foster Care, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Pseudo-Incest, Running Away, Sharing a Bed, mutual underage, petty larceny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:25:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14853597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Face_of_Poe/pseuds/Face_of_Poe
Summary: Alexander wondered if he should brace for being yelled at or being hit, before Edward finally informed him quietly, “If you do it again, I’ll never forgive you.”“I’m sorry,” he whispered back, and had never in his life felt so inadequate.But Edward just nodded once, graciously, and then pulled back the blanket and climbed into bed beside him.





	Something New Inside

**Author's Note:**

> If you give an author a randomly chosen setting, trope, and kink, she's going to write her under-the-radar & rarest of rare-pair OTPs with it.  
> Apparently. 
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“So.” The voice cut across his focus, jarred him out of his self-imposed isolation both physical, tucked away in the quiet corner of the house where his new foster guardians had put his luggage, and mental, hidden away in his books so he might yet delay expending any great emotional energy into another new place, another new family to regard him in shades of charitable disinterest. “What’s your story?”

An absurd question; the only thing that kept his hackles somewhat down was that the boy hovered just on the threshold, did not display that sort of proprietary disregard for his space as the eldest children at the last house had.

“Must I have one?” he asked in turn, after a moment’s awkward pause.

He shrugged. Glanced around the room, eyes lingering on the overstuffed messenger bag on the desk. “Where’s your family?”

“Um… dead?”

“Oh,” his interloper blinked quickly, eyes darting back to where Alexander perched in the desk chair. “Our last couple fosters were… temporary separations.” Drug addictions, mom’s abusive boyfriend… Alexander had heard those stories at the group home. “I’m sorry.”

He sounded sincere enough that Alexander was willing to overlook the twist in his gut at the ever-present reminder that he’s just one in a line, not the first, not the last, and certainly not a permanent resident in this peaceful country house.

x---x

Thomas and Ann Stevens were wrong, somehow. _Different_ from the others, and it took Alexander a few months to pinpoint the fact that his sense was not fueled by something subtly sinister in their comportment but rather that he found no perceivable difference in their behavior towards him and towards Edward. Had simply folded him into their small family from the word go, never mind that he was an unknown quantity, a houseguest for an indeterminate duration.

Part of him marveled at their lack of emotional self-preservation; or possibly simply at their acting skills.

The other part of him did the logical thing and drastically overreacted, lost any and all semblance of _chill_ and acted out in the loudest way he could fathom.

He ran away.

Stole a hundred bucks from the emergency funds stash in the filing cabinet and went in one door when Ann dropped them off at the high school and promptly slipped out another.

He was gone less than three days – two nights, the first largely spent attempting sleep on a metal chair in a police station, after a motel desk clerk found his efforts to book accommodations more than a little suspicious; the second, at his case worker’s house, in between an emotional day trying, and failing, to explain to her why he’d done it, and an emotional day trying to explain to Thomas and Ann why he’d done it.

_They’re too nice_ was met with perplexing looks from most of the figures who ultimately became involved in the kerfuffle, but when the suggestion that someone retrieve his things from the Stevens house was met with panicked apologies and brash promises not to do it again, to be _good_ , his case worker seemed to get a better grasp on his problem.

He hovered long enough in the hallway, once Thomas and Ann sent him off to rest after two fitful nights’ sleep, to hear her resigned explanation: “He’s getting attached, and that terrifies him.”

Edward wouldn’t even look at him the whole rest of the day.

x---x

That night was the first he and Edward shared a bed. He lay there stewing in his overwrought thoughts when the door creaked open, and he barely caught sight of Edward’s drawn face before it was clicking closed again, taking the sliver of light from the hallway with it.

He came close and hovered beside Alexander’s bed for a long minute, peering down at him, a frown pulling at the corners of his lips. Alexander wondered if he should brace for being yelled at or being hit, before Edward finally informed him quietly, “If you do it again, I’ll never forgive you.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered back, and had never in his life felt so inadequate.

But Edward just nodded once, graciously, and then pulled back the blanket and climbed into bed beside him. Kissed his face and took his hands in his own and leaned forward to press their foreheads together, and there was more spoken in the long minutes of silence that followed than Alexander would truly comprehend for years to come. 

x---x

_We’re not brothers_ , is what Alexander tells himself the first time Edward kisses him on the mouth.

_We’re not brothers_ , is what Alexander tells himself the first time he wakes up and feels the press of Edward’s erection against his backside.

_We’re not brothers_ , is what Alexander tells himself the first time he pictures Edward’s soft lips and gentle hands while he masturbates in the shower; fifteen, and confused enough by his budding libido without throwing the complication of his feelings towards, his _relationship_ with Edward in the mix.

_We’re not brothers_ , is what Alexander tells himself as Edward folds him into his arms and settles in to sleep, as they now do several times a week, as Thomas and Ann shrug and smile at their closeness, at the fierce bond that has strengthened between them since the fateful day he ran.

_We’re not brothers_ , is what Alexander tells himself, but the secret he protects with his all is not that which they do in the dark of the night behind closed doors.

It’s that he wishes they were.

x---x

Nearly two years after the Stevens family took him in – about a year and a half after the ill-contrived attempt to leave them before they could leave him – Thomas and Ann sat Alexander and Edward down on Christmas morning just weeks before Alexander’s sixteenth birthday and told them that they’d asked his case worker to put them in touch with an adoption attorney.

His shock gave way to elation, which was quickly tempered by something akin to _guilt_ churning deep in his stomach. Partly for the knowledge that these two wonderful people would never want him if only they knew about the soft kisses, the exploring caresses, the whispered promises; _mostly_ for fear of how Edward might take such a cataclysmic shift in their relationship, a shift that meant everything and nothing.

_We’re not brothers_ , he’d soothed himself on countless nights. _But what if we were?_

When he finally gathered the courage to glance at Edward, he saw a beaming smile and shining eyes, and no trace of his own doubts reflecting in them no matter how hard he looked. 

x---x

The courthouse sent them home with a photograph, standing with the presiding judge, the day the adoption was finalized some four months later.

Frameless, it was propped on the mantle in the den by the time Alexander made it through the front door.

For the first time in nearly two years, he felt the stirrings of that _fight-or-flight_ panic in response to the turbulent emotions roiling through him. Disbelief and contentment at what he’s found; a profound grief for what he’s lost and left behind.

Edward came up by his side and squeezed his hand, and the feeling passed.

x---x

Edward appeared in his doorway that night before Alexander could make up his mind whether or not to go to him. “My brother,” he said softly as the door closed behind him with a quiet _click_.

Alexander stood and let himself melt into his brother’s arms; closed his eyes and rode a tide of warmth and relief as careful lips kissed their way across his face. As gentle hands slid up the back of his shirt and splayed across his back, holding him close; as those hands pulled the shirt up over his head and lowered him down to the bed.

“Brother,” Edward repeated, barely audible against Alexander’s skin as he kissed his way down his jaw, his throat, across his collarbone. He climbed astride Alexander and murmured again, “Brother,” before tracing gentle lines across his stomach, between his ribs.

“ _Brother_ ,” Alexander agreed in a whispered gasp, letting his hands drift up to Edward’s waist so he might hold him in place and never let go.


End file.
